Our hope is that this Sprawlcast and article will start a larger conversation. On May 29, join The Sprawl and Best of Calgary for an afternoon discussion on bridging the geographic income divide in Calgary. The event is free and open to all. Find more details here!

You can listen to the Sprawlcast here, or find it on iTunes or Spotify.

Despite being Canada’s most prosperous major city, Calgary has quietly developed what researchers call a disturbing “geography of inequality” that poses numerous risks to the city’s future.

Most Calgarians live in areas where incomes have decreased over decades, even as incomes in Calgary have increased more rapidly than elsewhere in Canada. And income polarization is changing how we live together—or, as is becoming more common, apart from each other—in the city.

“We are seeing less and less economic mixing within neighbourhoods,” said Byron Miller, an urban political geographer at the University of Calgary. “And we are seeing more and more concentrations of low-income households in particular parts of the city and high-income households in other parts of the city.”

You get a society where people from different walks of life are no longer coming into contact with each other.

Byron Miller, University of Calgary

They found that since the 1970s, poverty in Calgary, as in Toronto, is increasingly being suburbanized even as incomes in select inner-city communities spike dramatically.

Calgary is the most income-unequal major city in Canada, according to the report. In terms of spatial income inequality, Calgary is the second-most unequal city, after Toronto.

And while choice has often been held up as the driving idea guiding urban development in Calgary—the housing market is providing what people want, and people are freely choosing where to live—the research suggests otherwise.

“Where do people who are in an economically precarious situation locate?” said Miller. “They locate, generally speaking, where the market prices are lowest. And that’s what we’re seeing in Calgary: this sorting-out of people into different parts of the city according to patterns of housing affordability.”

Donna Clarke, an organizer with the Renters Action Movement, states it more bluntly.

“The invisible hand of the market has not taken care of vulnerable people,” she said.

Calgary's 3 cities

In 1970, more than two-thirds of census tracts in Calgary were middle-income. Since then, the city has experienced a significant loss of middle-income neighbourhoods, with many post-war suburbs seeing their incomes go down. In 2010, only 41% of census tracts were middle income.

Miller worked with Ivan Townshend, a University of Lethbridge geography professor and the report's lead author, and Leslie Evans, executive director of the Federation of Calgary Communities (FCC), to understand what’s been happening over time.

They found three distinct cities within the larger city.

In City 1, which covers much of the inner city, individual incomes relative to the city average have increased. In City 2, the smallest of the cities, incomes held steady. And in City 3—which is largely suburban, comprising 60% of the city’s population in 2010—incomes declined.

“In 2010, we see a distinctively new geography of low income, in which inner-city concentrations of poverty have given way to a vast region of low and very low income in the northeast sector of the city,” states the 2018 report, noting that the northeast has increasingly high concentrations of visible-
minority immigrants.

An updated analysis found that while Calgary household incomes went up by 31% between 1980 and 2015, affluent and poor communities didn’t see equivalent changes—making Calgary a prime example of a “dividing city.”

This poses myriad risks, as income is directly tied to health, education and other outcomes.

“Income disparity is one of the biggest predictors of other social problems,” said longtime community organizer Cesar Cala, who has been working in neighbourhoods since he arrived in Calgary from the Philippines in the mid-1990s.

“It’s something that we need to address as a city,” said Cala. “If we let it be, Calgary will become such a dichotomized city.”

The most vulnerable communities have sometimes been described as “tipping point neighbourhoods,” where social issues have the potential to compound and accelerate each other.

“But also, these are the neighbourhoods where if you’re able to support local development through a combination of good public policy and citizen-led initiatives, you can actually tip the neighbourhood back and bring them towards resiliency,” said Cala.

It’s something that we need to address as a city. If we let it be, Calgary will become such a dichotomized city.

Cesar Cala, community organizer

Cala, who ran for the provincial NDP in Calgary-East, emphasizes that while deliberate investments in such areas are important, it’s key that community members are included—which leads to “deeper and long-lasting” change.

“I would draw a distinction, for instance, between development that’s happening in East Village and the development that is slowly happening in Calgary-East,” he said. “The East Village development is really more of ‘get a lot of the residents out of the picture and put in some new infrastructure.’"

"But in Calgary-East, it’s really investing in people and in the communities and the things that matter to them.”

Different cities, different needs

There is a sense of caution surrounding this research. Viewed carelessly, it could be used to stereotype certain areas of the city. “That is not the intent,” said Evans.

It's not as simple as saying City 1 is rich and City 3 is poor. Because the researchers tracked income change, an affluent neighbourhood that saw its incomes decrease could be part of City 3. Conversely, a low-income neighbourhood that saw incomes increase—but still remain low—could be part of City 1.

The deep southwest, for example, is in City 3 in large part due to seniors who have retired and are living off their pensions, says Miller.

“We’re not trying to pit the three cities against each other, and there’s definitely variability within the three cities,” said Ben Morin, an FCC urban planner. “There are people who are struggling in some of these inner communities and there are people who are doing well in the outer communities. But it’s about thinking of how these three cities fit together in terms of a policy perspective.”

No one city is better or worse off. They’re very different, and different decisions need to be made around them.

Leslie Evans, Federation of Calgary Communities

For example, spatial income inequality means that publicly-funded urban amenities—such as transit and walkability—are not equitably accessible. “Walkability has kind of become a premium for the wealthy in certain areas,” said Morin.

Evans notes that each of the three cities have different needs. City 1 needs a better mix of housing to let people in, whereas City 3 needs better services and transit to connect people with the rest of the city.

“Those are the kinds of things we need to talk about,” Evans said. “No one city is better or worse off. They’re very different, and different decisions need to be made around them.”

She points to the Green Line as an example of where the research could help. The new LRT line will extend south into communities where incomes increased—and won’t yet extend to the north-central communities, many of which have experienced declining incomes.

“It was actually needing to go more up to the north,” Evans said. “If we could have shown this and explained this, perhaps that might influence public policy in a different way.”

Social cohesion is being eroded

The research also offers a useful lens on some of the uglier social tensions Calgary has seen in recent years, in which residents try to keep out certain people and projects to preserve neighbourhood homogeneity—or “character,” the more palatable term.

The fierce anti-renter sentiment that some Calgarians have displayed at city hall can seem bizarre. But it’s more understandable when you consider that our neighbourhoods have become polarized by income.

“You get a society where people from different walks of life are no longer coming into contact with each other, no longer know each other in any meaningful way,” said Miller. “This is a real problem for a democratic society.”

The research offers a useful lens on ugly social tensions, in which residents try to keep certain people and projects out of their neighbourhood.

While the problem is undoubtedly immense and complex, solutions are possible on the municipal, provincial and federal levels.

Affordable housing is a key component, by all accounts.

“There have been some improvements in terms of social housing provision in recent years, but they’re relatively modest,” said Miller. “We are nowhere near where we need to be in terms of providing good-quality, desirable housing for those on low incomes.”

Many of the current problems can be traced back to the dismantling of the social safety net and social housing programs since the 1980s. “We take the market as a given,” said Miller. “It’s important to keep in mind that there are societies where we also have non-market mechanisms for providing housing.”

Canada could learn from the Netherlands, he says. There, social housing accounts for more than a third of housing stock—and even more in cities.

“It’s not housing of the last resort," said Miller. "It’s considered very good and very desirable housing for the most part, and because it’s desirable, you tend to get much greater social mixing.”

I’d like to see better accommodation built so that us vulnerable, poor people — or renters — could live above ground.

Donna Clarke, Renters Action Movement

Donna Clarke with the Renters Action Movement says that while city hall’s recent secondary suite reforms are welcome, it’s low-hanging fruit, as many renters would rather not live in a basement suite.

“I’d like to see better accommodation built so that us vulnerable, poor people—or renters—could live above ground,” said Clarke, adding that a lot of Calgary Housing Company units aren’t particularly appealing either. “There’s a lot of subpar housing.”

Renters Action Movement is calling on the province to bring in rent control, one tool to protect people from being pushed out of their homes and neighbourhoods by gentrification.

As long as we keep relying on the market to solve the problem, Miller says, we’ll keep seeing segregation by income.

“It’s only when residential location is not dependent upon income that you’re going to start to see greater diversity within neighbourhoods,” Miller said.

Our hope is that this Sprawlcast and story will start a larger conversation. On May 29, join The Sprawl and Best of Calgary for an afternoon discussion on bridging the geographic income divide in Calgary. The event is free and open to all. Find more details here!

This is core to what we do. It's point 3 of the Sprawl Manifesto: "In a world of noise, we embrace quiet. Periods of silence are built into The Sprawl’s design—and that’s a good thing. No one needs another incessant torrent of fragmented information flying at them. We go quiet so we can return with journalism that’s worth your time."

The more I do this work, the more I realize how important The Sprawl's "quiet mode" really is.

Why Calgarians support The Sprawl.

As a Calgarian and as a human who cares about facts and stories in a post-fact world, I need to support great journalism in all its forms. That is why I subscribe to The Globe and Mail, The Economist, Medium, The New York Times, and now...The Sprawl. Keep up the great work!

Vincent Duckworth,

Sprawler

Building the kind of Calgary we need means talking, writing and breathing the kind of community we want. For me, The Sprawl is part of that ecosystem that more of us are starting to grow together.

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Sprawler

Focusing on local issues allows all Calgarians to make more informed decisions in their day-to-day lives. The Sprawl has brought a breath of fresh air into an otherwise stale media environment.

Michael Mooney,

Sprawler

In the face of news conglomeration, "If it bleeds, it leads" sensationalism, clickbait and polarization of the news, this is a breath of fresh air. That’s why I support The Sprawl.

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Sprawler

Proud to support substance in a world focused on punchy headlines and clickbait! (And I loved the manifesto.)

On the eve of the Alberta election, Twitter suspended numerous outspoken critics of the United Conservative Party (UCP) and its leader, Jason Kenney.

An Alberta political journalist also had her account temporarily suspended by the U.S. social media company.

In all, The Sprawl is aware of more than a dozen accounts that got suspended on Monday, including NDP and Alberta Party volunteers.

Some users—including Edwin Mundt, Dave Beninger and Mimi Williams—have their names attached to their accounts. Others are anonymous yet still influential, such as @TheGentYYC and Handmaids for Kenney (@HandmaidAlberta), who routinely fact-check Kenney on the social media site.

John Leung, a local cook who describes himself as a Red Tory, said he went to check Twitter at about 1:30 p.m. on Monday. "I find out that my account has been locked because of 'automated behaviour,'" he said. "I'm like—'okay, have I tweeted a lot lately?'"

One report is not going to get Twitter to suspend us. It has to be a concerted effort of a lot of accounts.

John Leung (@JohnLeungYYC)

Initially, Leung and others who got suspended thought they were isolated cases. But by evening, it was clear that something was up.

"I feel like this is a way to silence some of the more vocal non-UCP supporters," said Leung, who has expressed support on Twitter for NDP candidate Julia Hayter in Calgary-Edgemont, where he grew up.

"This is a concerted way to silence us. Because one report is not going to get Twitter to suspend us. It has to be a concerted effort of a lot of accounts."

Leung was able to verify his account and regained access by day's end.

Others, like Mundt, remain locked out.

"I still don't know what the offending post was," said Mundt, an outspoken voice for the centrist Alberta Party. "Twitter will look at my appeal, but I may not have an answer for three days."

Tamara Lee, a volunteer on the campaign of Calgary NDP candidate Kathleen Ganley, was using Twitter on Monday when she got notice that she was suspended.

In the days previous, she had been posting photos of herself and her family putting up signs for Ganley in the hotly-contested riding of Calgary-Mountain View.

She and other volunteers have been working to replace vandalized and missing signs—a problem for multiple parties throughout the city.

I feel like my voice is being silenced, and that feels awful. And now others are being silenced as well? That’s even worse.

"It seems pretty stinky. A dozen people, all of whom are outspoken and progressive. I mean, really? The day before an election? I don't know how they did it, but it seems like it's a bit of a coordinated attack."

Complaints made to Twitter can lead to a user being suspended. "We may suspend an account if it has been reported to us as violating our rules surrounding abuse," says the website.

However, Twitter says the bulk of suspensions are not about abuse. "Most of the accounts we suspend are suspended because they are spammy, or just plain fake, and they introduce security risks for Twitter and all of our users," states the company's site.

Cam Gordon of Twitter Canada would not comment on the mass suspensions and why they occurred all at once on the day before an election.

"We don't comment on the activity or status of individual accounts or individual Tweets as a matter of privacy for users," Gordon said in an email to The Sprawl.

Reading the electoral tea leaves is a fraught business at the best of times.

Remember the 2012 campaign, when Danielle Smith’s Wildrose Party was predicted by pollsters, just days before the election, to sweep to a tremendous victory? Or 2017, when Naheed Nenshi was heading to sure defeat? (Those elections, uh, didn’t quite turn out that way.)

Politics is always a wily beast, but Alberta’s current political landscape has changed in ways we have yet to fully understand—and that makes predicting this election a fool’s errand.

“I think it’s a unique election,” says Alvin Finkel, professor emeritus of history at Athabasca University. “In the past, the conservative party was so dominant, essentially elections were coronations.”

Before it happened, no one could foresee the complete collapse of the four-decade PC dynasty. Before it happened, no one could imagine an NDP majority government in Alberta being elected with support that, although concentrated in the two big cities, was broad enough to win seats in rural and small-city ridings.

In short, Alberta’s politics have been upended in surprising ways that make conventional wisdom less reliable.

It’s difficult to place this election in the context of previous Alberta campaigns. Change elections have been relatively scarce in Alberta, given the province’s history of political dynasties.

That means we’re left with few and distant case studies that bear little resemblance to modern Alberta.

Forget 1921 or 1935, when brand-new upstart parties (United Farmers and Social Credit, respectively) unexpectedly swept to power—Alberta is a drastically different place than 1971, when Peter Lougheed ushered in the Progressive Conservative era, or even 1993, when Ralph Klein’s right-wing populism brought him to office.

“You can find some similarities [to 1921 or 1935], but I think they fall apart,” says Finkel.

One such similarity he offers is between the campaign promises of Jason Kenney’s UCP and the 1935 campaign of William Aberhart’s SoCreds—not in substance so much as overselling.

Calgary Herald front page after Social Credit victory, 1935.

Finkel says that while the SoCreds offered an “interventionist program” that involved controlling banks and currency in ways they had no power to actually do, “the UCP is promising a market-based program that involves things they can’t do — they can’t control the price of oil, they can’t control what oil producers internationally are going to do.”

“The similarity with 1935 would be that you have a party telling the people of Alberta that the provincial government could have powers that it actually doesn’t have,” says Finkel.

The Alberta NDP’s 2015 victory came with many adjectives: historic, in part because it marked the end of the PC dynasty; groundbreaking, because it proved a centre-left party could succeed in Alberta.

One other legacy we might one day affix to that campaign: realignment. As in, a fundamental shift in the political reality of the province that lasts well beyond one election cycle.

Prior to 2015, just four parties ever formed government in Alberta over 110 years, all for lengthy unbroken stretches, none ever returning to power once defeated.

It’s possible that the 2015 election changed all that. Perhaps, regardless of who forms the next government, Alberta will no longer dominated by a single party but have a somewhat more balanced political field, with two primary parties who alternate power.

The UCP is promising a market-based program that involves things they can’t do — they can’t control the price of oil.

Alvin Finkel, Alberta historian

“Given our history of long periods of one-party dominance, this makes the 2019 election and the legislative dynamics after the election potentially game-changing,” wrote Anthony Sayers, associate professor of political science at the University of Calgary, in an email toThe Sprawl.

“It also means that we may see after the election two parties with distinct urban bases: Edmonton for the NDP and Calgary for the UCP.”

Finkel believes the landscape has already shifted, no matter who forms the next government.

“I think regardless of the outcome of this election,” he says, “Alberta has become more like the other Western provinces—that is, the politics have polarized between a modestly left-learning NDP and a right-wing party.

Jason Kenney has referred to the NDP as an “accidental government.” While the “orange chinook” has indeed faded since 2015—the party hasn't led a poll since—the implication that a centre-left government is an aberration that requires correction seems to be not just a political talking point, but a deeply-felt truth among some on the right.

But the notion that electing a UCP government would be “restoring” anything doesn’t quite fit. The party is the result of a merger between the old Progressive Conservative and Wildrose parties, but the new party is more Wildrose than PC. The Red Toryism of the PCs has faded.

The Progressive Conservatives’ tremendous longevity can be partly attributed to occupying the mushy middle of the political spectrum.

“The UCP is really the Wildrose party, having captured the PCs,” says Finkel. “When those parties nominally united, you had one party that had far more members than the other, essentially taking over.”

The Progressive Conservatives’ tremendous longevity can be partly attributed to occupying the mushy middle of the political spectrum, tacking one way or another to appeal to different groups as needed. They never strayed too far or too long from the supposedly pragmatic, middle-of-the-road politics that appeal to many middle-class Albertans, particularly in the cities and suburbs.

The Wildrose Party, on the other hand, was never known for successfully moderating its far-right impulses—arguably one of the reasons it never gained power.

Whether the more extreme elements of the UCP can be successfully packaged and sold to a majority of mainstream Albertans is a big question.

Perhaps the most defining aspect of the 2019 Alberta election is the fact that the two main parties are presenting such widely different views of Alberta’s present and future—to the point that they might be fundamentally irreconcilable.

The NDP has governed largely from the moderate centre-left, with only a handful of progressive policies, none of them terribly radical. That’s the same approach seen in their re-election platform, with increases in social spending and pledges to ban conversion therapy, fight climate change and attempt to diversify the economy.

The emotional centre of a good chunk of the UCP argument is that everything would be fine if you just left things the way they used to be.

Though most overtly applied to climate change and economic concerns—the so-called “job-killing carbon tax,” for example—successive scandals around multiple UCP candidates espousing racist or homophobic views suggest that the door has been left open for broader interpretations of “the way things used to be.”’

The NDP has governed largely from the moderate centre-left, with only a handful of progressive policies, none of them terribly radical.

“They are irreconcilable,” says Finkel of the two parties’ worldviews.

“You’ve got one party whose vision of government is to ensure that people have adequate health, education and social programming. Then you have the other party, the UCP, wanting to cut all that and claiming that the role of the provincial government is to lure investors at the expense of social programs.”

Economic woes may be front and centre in this campaign, but given the wide gap between the NDP and UCP’s respective visions of society, the threat of climate change, and the future of the province, the choice voters make may tell us a good deal about Alberta’s values and divisions.

Regardless of the election’s outcome, Finkel believes we’re already in a new era of Alberta politics, where the NDP and UCP trade power with comparative regularity while the electorate remains polarized.

“That question of the role of provincial government,” he says, “is going to stay with us.”

Taylor Lambert is a Calgary writer and the author of Darwin's Moving, which won the 2018 City of Calgary W.O. Mitchell Book Prize.

In Alberta, third party advertisers (TPAs)—or political action committees (PACs)—fund a lot of ad campaigns.

But who are these groups, and how does their funding play into influencing the Alberta election?

TPAs are people, groups or organizations who need to register with Elections Alberta once they've spent more than $1,000 on advertising. After the NDP banned corporate and union donations in 2015, the money started flowing to PACs instead.

PACs in Alberta have taken in more than $1.4M since December 1 and include organizations such as Merit Contractors Association, the Alberta Teachers’ Association, Alberta Victory Fund and the Alberta Federation of Labour.

Third-party advertisers who have raised the most since December 1, according to Elections Alberta.

On social media, the influence of PACs is amplified. Using Facebook and Twitter, they’re able to spread information quickly and get people involved, on top of running aggressive ad campaigns. And while there are caps on how much they can put into advertising, posting on social media doesn’t count—with the exception of paid posts.

Which basically means this is the Wild West, and not the fun Stampede kind either.

Let’s take a tour of who some of these groups are—and who’s behind them. (All numbers for this article are taken from disclosures to Elections Alberta covering the period from December 1, 2018, to April 11, 2019.)

Shaping Alberta's Future

Who are they?

They are self-described as “a free market-oriented” PAC. Shaping Alberta’s Future is rallying behind Jason Kenney and the UCP. After the NDP’s win, Shaping Alberta’s Future started promoting standard conservative values, such as free enterprise and limited government. Their goal: “defeat the NDP in the next Alberta election.” The PAC also runs the attack website NDPfacts.ca.

Who’s funding them?

Shaping Alberta’s Future has brought in more than any other PAC, with a cool $298,000. All of that sweet maple-syrup scented cash comes from a mix of corporations and individuals from Edmonton, Calgary, Lethbridge, Medicine Hat, and a few smaller towns. Among the contributors are Surge Energy Inc., Crew Energy Inc. and La Crete Saw Mills, to name a few.

Having deep-pocketed contributors on board means Shaping Alberta’s Future has become one of the most influential PACs in the province.

What’s their reach?

While they only have a little over 4,200 likes on Facebook and 1,475 on Twitter, their connections to the corporate world means that their reach goes beyond the social media world. And they’ve been able to use all of that money to generate a mass of UCP-friendly content.

Saving Alberta’s Future couldn’t be reached for comment.

Progress Alberta

Who are they?

On the opposite side of the spectrum, Progress Alberta is the left’s answer to conservative election advertising. Duncan Kinney, executive director of Progress Alberta, describes the organization as a “hybrid” of both online and person-to-person advertising and education. It’s pretty easy to identify what they stand for: diversity, a healthy environment, government for the people rather than for corporations, condemning the alt-right—standard progressive stuff.

Who funds them?

Unlike their conservative counterparts, Progress Alberta is relatively strapped for resources. With their “hybrid” model, they spend less on creating content and ads for social media and put a focus on interacting with Albertans offline.

“Progressive left-wing ideas are really popular, but they don't have a lot of financial capital and resources,” Kinney said. “Broadly speaking, I think the left has more ‘people power’ and the right has more financial influence.”

According to their disclosures, they’ve raised $6,500.00 from two union contributors—CUPE Local 37 in Calgary and Unifor in Edmonton.

What’s their reach?

With a combined following of just under 14,000 across their Facebook and Twitter, Progress Alberta definitely has some pull on social media.

“The goal here is to identify supporters and people who share our values online more than anywhere else, and then and then actually get them to do politics,” Kinney said.

“Politics is about going out and talking to your friends and neighbours by doing some door knocking. Those are far more valuable than a Facebook message.”

Alberta Proud

Who are they?

Well, they’re proud of Alberta, that’s for sure. If the name feels like it’s ringing a bell, that’s because it is—you may recognize the “Proud” brand from the Eastern Canadian organization: Ontario Proud. And while spokesperson and content creator Haley Love said that the two organizations are separate, they share the same values and goals.

And what are those values? Alberta Proud is very conservative, promoting things like pipelines, keeping government out of Albertans’ business and disagreeing with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on pretty much everything.

Love said that they’re a small team based out of Calgary and spend most of their efforts creating graphics, videos and sharing articles.

Who funds them?

Their year-to-date report of quarterly contributions (December 1, 2018 to April 4, 2019) come in at $74,000 with the largest contributions coming from corporations like Source Energy Services Ltd. and private individuals.

What’s their reach?

With well over 172,000 likes on Facebook, Alberta Proud has incredible reach and it has a lot to do with the way that they share and post their content.

In addition to posting their original graphics, photos and videos, they incorporate some very shareable general Albertan content like photos and memes about how “nice” Canadians are. This means that they’ve attracted an audience that may not have any idea that they’re involved in election advertising at all. This puts their reach well beyond the standard echo chamber that PACs tend to exist in.

And while Love said that Alberta Proud isn’t in support of or against a particular party, it’s evident from all the anti-NDP articles and Trudeau memes they’ve been sharing that is probably not the case.

Alberta Can't Wait

Who are they?

Alberta Can’t Wait is a private company that was established after a group of “everyday Albertans” gathered in Red Deer to express their distrust of the NDP. According to their website, Kenney once thanked them for uniting the conservative movement across Alberta.

Beyond their distrust for the NDP, their main mission is to ensure Alberta has a conservative government after April 16 And despite the common theme of not being for or against anyone in the election, Alberta Can’t Wait has made it pretty clear that they support the UCP.

Who funds them?

Alberta Can’t Wait isn’t currently listed as a TPA on the Elections Alberta website, and as a result their financial records aren’t available. Prem Singh, the media contact for the organisation, said earlier this year that Alberta Can’t Wait wouldn’t be active in the election, is doing no advertising and has no involvement.

What’s their reach?

Despite being officially inactive as an advertiser, they still do a lot on social media. They currently have more than 78,700 likes on their Facebook page and more than 7,200 followers on Twitter. Between their daily negative Notley posts, conservative memes and hyping up all things pipeline, Alberta Can’t Wait is very active in its sharing and influence.

Unite Alberta

Who are they?

Unite Alberta isn’t a PAC, although it looks like one. It started out as Kenney’s leadership campaign back in 2016 after the NDP’s win. According to some digging done by Progress Alberta, Unite Alberta was being advertised as a non-profit on Kenney’s campaign website. Both Unite Alberta’s and Kenney’s campaign website have since been taken down, and upon further inspection it’s evident that Unite Alberta was actually registered as a corporation.

Unite Alberta is not listed as a third-party advertiser with Elections Alberta, which means that the organization is essentially just a Twitter account at this point, with the main purpose of ensuring that no one comes for Kenney.

Who funds them?

When Unite Alberta first began looking for funding back in 2016, the campaign welcomed donations from all Albertans. Kenney even took it on the road for the “Unite Alberta Truck Tour,” which features a lot of photos of Kenney in a blue truck.

What’s their reach?

The Twitter account currently boasts over 8,300 followers and they don’t exist on Facebook. They are one of many UCP Twitter accounts. The account is often used to try and discredit Kenney’s critics.

Unite Alberta couldn’t be reached for comment.

Correction: We originally stated that Alberta Proud is based out of Edmonton; in fact they're based in Calgary. This story has been updated accordingly.

Hadeel Abdel-Nabi is a freelance journalist and writer based in Calgary. Her work has been published in VICE, Avenue Calgary, HuffPost and elsewhere.

Given this warning, you’d think climate policies would be front and centre in every election from here on out—but we’re not seeing that in Alberta.

The Alberta Party and the Freedom Conservative Party don’t even name “climate change” in their platforms. Meanwhile the United Conservative Party (UCP) is seeking to roll back many of the NDP’s advances made in the last four years.

Let's take a closer look at how the different platforms stack up against each another.

The carbon tax—and what's behind it

The United Conservative Party (UCP) proposes eliminating the carbon tax and returning to a model of taxing pollution similar to former Premier Ed Stelmach's in 2007, wherein only large industrial emitters have any price on emissions.

That change would also come with a lower rate, dropping from $30 per tonne (introduced by the NDP) to $20.

Furthermore, that rate would exempt the majority of each company’s emissions, measuring against what they emitted in 2016 and forcing them only to compete against their historical emissions. In contrast, the NDP plan set sector-wide benchmarks so dirtier companies had incentive to clean up their production.

Andrew Leach, associate professor of environmental and energy economics and the University of Alberta, says there's good reason the NDP didn’t focus solely on industrial emitters.

If you’re going to have a policy that focuses exclusively on [large industrial emitters], you’re sort of inviting a policy that’s discriminatory against your province.

Andrew Leach, University of Alberta

Leach chaired the Climate Leadership Panel, conducting the research on which the Notley plan was based.

“Alberta’s always had the view... that all emissions should be treated the same,” said Leach. “That you shouldn’t look at the emissions from a car on the 401 differently than you look at an oil sands emission. But yet in our own policy, we were always treating them differently.”

“You want to make that carbon price as broad as possible to produce any given level of emissions reductions at the lowest cost,” Beugin said.

“So if you’re pricing only big emitters and you aren’t giving incentives for all the smaller emitters to reduce emissions, you’re either diluting the impact of your policy or you’re making it more expensive—or you’re doing both.”

The Calgary Climate Hub is pushing for more climate action. Photo: Sarah Lawrynuik

Leach also notes that if Alberta advocates for industrial-emitters-only policy, Alberta ends up with the short straw.

“Most of those big industrial emissions in Canada are in Alberta,” he said. “And so if you’re going to have a policy that focuses exclusively on those, you’re sort of inviting a policy that’s discriminatory against your province.”

The Alberta Party has promised a similar model to the UCP in their iteration of a carbon tax—exempting homes, businesses, farms, and nonprofits.

Beugin says these exemptions run contrary to best practices in other jurisdictions such as B.C. Even at $30 per tonne, they saw lower consumption of gasoline, natural gas and so on.

“It’s all small incremental emissions reductions in each of our individual lives, small businesses and day-to-day activities,” said Beugin. “And they’re not large individually, but they do add up given how big a share of the emissions pie those small emitters are making up.”

Source: Andrew Leach

As for the NDP, there isn’t much new in their platform since their Climate Leadership Plan (CLP) was meant to cover over a decade of policy. They remain committed to returning the bulk of their carbon tax revenues to low- and middle-income Albertans in the form of rebates.

The NDP platform lauds the success of their CLP, claiming emissions have dropped by 16% since the plan was implemented—but in reality, the 16% is how much emissions are expected to drop from what was originally projected by 2030.

The most recent CLP progress report, released in February, cites 2016 statistics that show the government tracked only a 2% decrease in CO2 equivalent emissions from 2014.

The Liberal Party says they will keep a carbon tax but make it revenue neutral, meaning they would enhance rebates to low-income Albertans.

The Green Party is more aggressive, stating they would raise the rate of the carbon tax.

The Freedom Conservatives vow to eliminate any carbon tax at all and join the legal battle against the federal policy.

Other ways to reduce emissions

If the NDP form another government, it would mean the continued existence of Energy Efficiency Alberta, a new agency that administers rebates for efficiency projects and encourages energy-saving home upgrades.

The NDP also renewed their pledge to fund the new Calgary and Edmonton LRT projects, which the UCP and Liberals have also committed to. The Green Party goes further, saying they'd support additional transit investment to take even more cars off the road.

Coal is another big issue. Both federally and provincially, under the NDP, a phase-out of coal is scheduled to happen by 2030. The UCP and the Freedom Conservatives both want to reverse that decision. How they would address that conflict with Ottawa is unclear.

“Those historical subsidies for carbon capture and storage have just been really expensive,” Beugin said. “It’s the reverse of carbon pricing, where you are agnostic as to which technology is going to be the one that reduces more emissions at lower cost. It’s picking a winner and saying, ‘This is the one.’”

“That’s the kind of industrial policy that economists tend not to love because governments don’t pick winners that well.”

Those historical subsidies for carbon capture and storage have just been really expensive.

Dale Beugin, Executive Director, Canada’s Ecofiscal Commission

Another problem in Alberta is methane gas, mainly produced by the energy sector. Methane is of particular concern as it has a warming effect roughly 25 times that of carbon dioxide. The NDP are reiterating their commitment to lower methane emissions by 2025, but thus far little progress has been made.

The Green Party proposes more creative and aggressive solutions, such as electric vehicle subsidies and a net-zero standard requirements for buildings constructed after 2030.

Support for oil and gas sector

Alberta politicians know victory is all but impossible in this province without supporting the province’s biggest industry, as was demonstrated in the leaders’ debate earlier this month wherein all of the leaders disputed how to get pipelines built—but not whether or not building more pipelines is sound environmental policy.

As B.C. Green Party Leader (and climate scientist) Andrew Weaver pointed out when he reflected on Rachel Notley’s years as premier thus far, “effective immediately, no jurisdictions anywhere in the world can continue to build new expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure if we want to meet the Paris commitment.”

And so by that measure all parties in Alberta are falling short on climate action as all parties—with the exception of the Greens—have supported one or more pipeline projects.

UCP leader Jason Kenney also proposes a “war room” to “respond in real time to lies and myths” about Alberta’s energy sector. It’s estimated this endeavour will cost a cool $30 million.

We need our government to send the message that they’re watching over industry and making sure industry behaves well.

Andrew Leach, University of Alberta

This isn’t Kenney’s brainchild, Leach notes. Similar communications strategies were pursued both by Stelmach and federally under former finance minister Joe Oliver. Leach suspects these strategies actually helped fuel some of the anti-Alberta sentiment outside the province.

“We need our government to send the message that they’re watching over industry and making sure industry behaves well,” said Leach. “If they’re sending the message that anything industry does is always great, then people are more likely to believe that industry is getting away with murder.”

Support for renewables sector

The NDP set the goal of deriving 30% of the province’s power from renewables by 2030.

Contracts signed by the NDP under the Renewable Electricity Program guarantee producers a price of $37 to $40/megawatt hour for wind, or $48/megawatt hour for solar. To put that in context, the average cost in the province of natural gas electricity using the lowest-cost technology (before a carbon tax is factored in) is $54 per megawatt hour, according to the Canadian Energy Research Institute.

Despite this success, both the UCP and the Freedom Conservative Party have said they will end subsidies for the renewables industry—but continued support might not be so crucial at this juncture, says Leach.

“It’s not just the government that should be interested in procuring power at $30,” Leach said. “This isn’t a technology that needs massive subsidies to succeed. It needs still some contract stuff to take some risk off the big capital [investment] up front."

"But there are lots of people in a position to take that kind of risk in return for cheaper power in the long term.”

Meanwhile, the Liberal Party is vague about their support, only stating that they will create a regulatory environment to support renewables. The Alberta Party is mum on the topic. And once again, the Green Party is the most strong-spoken in their support for renewables, especially solar and geothermal.

Adapting to a warming climate

Earlier this month, a federal government report was leaked to CBC stating that Canada is warming at nearly three times the global rate. In light of this revelation, it's jarring to see only three parties address climate change adaptation.

After sending mixed messages earlier in the campaign, the UCP have committed to supporting the Springbank Dam, one of the NDP's planned flood mitigation projects. Both of those parties have also stated that they will combat the spreading problem of pests such as the mountain pine beetle in Alberta’s forests. Additionally, the NDP commits to improving watershed management to combat the growing problem of blue-green algae blooms.

But that's all that is outlined by the two main parties.

Again, the Green Party is bolder. It would mandate a review of water licences every 20 years, in light of worsening droughts due to climate change.

“The stringency of the policies that are on the table are not going to be sufficient to get where we want to go,” Beugin said.

Views towards minority communities have drawn significant focus in the Alberta election. Most of the time, the discussion is whether a statement from a candidate was in some way bigoted.

Those statements matter. They establish whether we can trust politicians to represent diverse constituencies and act in the interest of all Albertans. But parties also have political positions on human rights, outlined in their policy statements and platforms—explicit declarations of their intent in governing.

These, too, are worth analysis. Here we’ll take a closer look at some of the policy issues.

Anti-racism grants

The NDP government created an anti-racism council responsible for distributing block grants to community organizations that address racism. Three parties (NDP, Liberal, and Green) have all said they would continue to fund this project. The UCP and Alberta Party do not mention the existing community grant programs in their platforms. However, the UCP party platform does include $1M in block grants distributed by matching spending on security for communities at risk of hate crimes.

Indigenous-settler reconciliation

Every major political party has a proposal for provincial Indigenous reconciliation. They’re all in favour of some reconciliation efforts, but the substance of these efforts varies significantly. Treaty 8 leaders have criticized UCP policy on a number of grounds, including its suggestion of unilateral action on Indigenous programs. "The platform of the UCP clearly shows that they know nothing or can’t be bothered with Indigenous people, Treaty, and what issues we are dealing with," said Arthur Noskey, Grand Chief of Treaty 8 First Nations of Alberta.

Non-discrimination policies

There are a number of areas where LGBTQ+ people in Alberta may face discrimination, including hiring and employment. The NDP, Liberal Party, and Green Party all have explicit policy statements for expanding non-discrimination protections. The Alberta Party has no position in its policy statements. The UCP has no explicit position, but their other policies may harm efforts to fight LGBTQ2+ discrimination.

As well, the Green Party proposes a non-discrimination policy in hiring individuals whose crimes are not related to the job they’re entering. This is a form of instituting racial non-discrimination, as those sorts of convictions disproportionately disqualify people of colour.

Conversion therapy

The NDP has previously proposed a provincial ban on the practice of “therapies” that purport to change, “repair”, or otherwise influence the sexual orientation or identity of people. These methods are not medically recognized and harm LGBTQ2+ people, especially youth who are coerced into accepting those therapies by parents. The NDP, Liberal Party, and Green Party all support a ban on these practices; though some advocates say a ban itself is not sufficient. The Alberta Party and UCP have articulated no official position.

Free speech

The UCP favours increasing protections for free speech and changing the standards of evidence for the Alberta Human Rights Tribunal. The free speech standards could make it more difficult to prosecute the dissemination of racist propaganda, under the basis of free speech protections for publishers and distributors. This could make it difficult for minority groups to pursue human and civil rights actions against racist groups. A good chunk of that depends on the detail.

Joshua Stein is a doctoral candidate in the department of philosophy at the University of Calgary. His academic work focuses on values and reasons in practical and moral decision-making, as well as public policy issues in both health care and racist and anti-Semitic extremism.

Albertans were shocked by the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States, and at the misogyny and xenophobia that propelled him to the White House and has taken hold in his administration.

Thousands have marched at annual Women's Marches held across Alberta since 2017. Many are disgusted with the Trump administration’s treatment of Muslim and Mexican migrants, and its affiliation with transphobic, white supremacist, and anti-abortion groups that Trump appears to personally condone.

The same intolerant views loom large in the current Alberta election.

And though the majority of Albertans are unsettled by such views, they are unlikely to impact the votes of many who are alarmed by what is happening south of the border.

There is a small contingent of Albertans who hate LGBTQ2+ people, and think that non-whites threaten their place in Alberta. But these people comprise a minority in the province.

The Albertans I know who are opposed to hate normalized by Trump, but still plan on voting for Jason Kenney and the UCP, have come to that decision for various reasons.

What happened in Charlottesville wasn’t an isolated act, but is the consequence of allowing hate to flourish.

They don’t consider the views expressed by UCP candidates and members to be in the same vein as what is happening in the United States. Certainly, Kenney is not proposing to criminalize transgender people for using washrooms or lock up child migrants, but the same foundational views that spurred these incidents have been on display within the UCP.

An extreme anti-abortion group has boasted that through a coordinated campaign, it has managed to nominate a number of UCP candidates with the aim of ensuring that Alberta has as many pro-life legislators as possible. Over successive weekends, white supremacists have marched on Whyte Avenue in Edmonton, claiming their right to our streets.

And while it’s true that we haven’t had a Charlottesville incident in Alberta, what happened in Charlottesville wasn’t an isolated act, but is the consequence of allowing hate to flourish.

There should be no acceptance of intolerance. This is the standard that should apply to any credible political party or politician in this province.

A false choice

Most people I know who have concerns over the UCP’s approach to social issues, but still intend to vote for them, are doing so due to concerns over the economy.

It’s a concern that I understand.

I own a small business. Many of my clients are individuals and small businesses who are struggling financially, in some cases having their homes foreclosed on or going through the insolvency process.

But this election isn’t a choice between relieving economic anxieties or ensuring Alberta remains a place for everyone. Economic prosperity and social inclusion go hand in hand, and anyone claiming that one precedes the other is being disingenuous.

Allowing LGBTQ2+ students safe spaces in schools doesn’t impact our ability to build interprovincial pipelines. Albertans are entitled to both financial security and recognition that they belong here, regardless of what they look like or whom they love.

Albertans are entitled to both financial security and recognition that they belong here, regardless of what they look like or whom they love.﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿

The United States made a similar bargain in electing Trump. That, in order to make America great again, some Americans would have to be sidelined. That race, gender, and sexuality matter in determining whether the American dream remains a dream or becomes reality.

Elections serve many functions. They allow citizens to set the policy course of future governments, but are also referendums on who we aspire to be as a society, what values we cherish, and the type of community we want to build for ourselves and future generations.

Trump’s America is not an aberration or a dystopian anomaly that could never happen in Alberta.

It’s what happens when reasonable people choose to overlook what their politicians stand for, and with whom. It's what happens when reasonable people ignore the intolerance political actors direct towards their neighbours and loved ones.

It's what happens when reasonable people forget that we all deserve to call this province home.

Avnish Nanda is an Alberta-based public law litigator who teaches constitutional law at the University of Alberta's Faculty of Law.

With the Alberta 2019 election now in the homestretch, we are turning our attention to the many candidate forums happening around town.

As we did in the 2017 municipal election, The Sprawl will be live-streaming these forums on Facebook and making the video available afterward. (See below.) That way you still have a chance to hear from your candidates—even if you can't make it to the forum.

But! If you can make it to a forum, you definitely should!

Community volunteers are working hard to make these events happen. Plus, it's good for you to be crammed in a room with people who see things differently than you do.

Here are the forums happening (and that have already happened) in Calgary before Election Day, April 16. Please help us make this list comprehensive! If you know of a forum that's not on this list, please let us know on Twitter, or email us at hello@sprawlcalgary.com.

We try to live-stream forums where we can. Here is where we will put our video—and links to other video streams—after forums are finished.